The King, in his overweening
confidence in his absolute prerogative, had, indeed, got himself into
serious difficulty; for the privilege was one which it was impossible
for the Commons to give up. But Bacon led the House to agree to an
arrangement which saved their rights; and under a cloud of words of
extravagant flattery he put the King in good-humour, and elicited from
him the spontaneous proposal of a compromise which ended a very
dangerous dispute. "The King's voice," said Bacon, in his report to the
House, "was the voice of God in man, the good spirit of God in the mouth
of man; I do not say the voice of God and not of man; I am not one of
Herod's flatterers; a curse fell upon him that said it, a curse on him
that suffered it. We might say, as was said to Solomon, We are glad, O
King, that we give account to you, because you discern what is spoken."
The course of this Parliament, in which Bacon was active and prominent,
showed the King, probably for the first time, what Bacon was. The
session was not so stormy as some of the later ones; but occasions arose
which revealed to the King and to the House of Commons the deeply
discordant assumptions and purposes by which each party was influenced,
and which brought out Bacon's powers of adjusting difficulties and
harmonising claims.
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